UK Train Fare Rises: What You Need To Know

With my work for the KiranTrivedi Blog I work on a core principle. This principle is that when out your personal finance you need to budget. So why are train fares the current concern for budgets in 2014?

The key element to note about a budget is that it can be volatile. A budget is based around the idea that you total your incomings and the divide them between your outgoing costs. Logically, this leads us to the conclusion that if an element of that budget were to change, to increase or decrease, then the entire budget needs to be redrawn.

This is why train fares are a key budgetary concern to the professional in 2014. Many professionals commute by train. Whilst some only commute at certain times, some commute on a daily basis. Estimates ascertain that many professionals in modern Britain commute for longer than two or even three hours.

Naturally costs add up. When you are commuting for hours at a time on a daily basis, it has to factor into your budget. The cost of any commute, even if it is only a few pounds, is bound to add up. It is bound to have a significant effect on the budget over time.

If you are a commuter then the news that as of January 2014, train fairs have risen on average by 2.8% is of major concern. Again, it may not seem a major concern. For example a train fare of £1.90 will only rise by ten pence. However ten a day is three pounds a month and three pounds per month is £36 per year.

It’s even more dramatic for specialist tickets of certain types. Price hikes have actually gone as high as 3.1% for some season tickets, anytime and off peak tickets. However the government claims that these are the lowest price rises in the last decade.

The matter of the fact is that for most commuters’ costs of train travel are significantly higher than £1.90 a day. When you consider that a 2.8% rise on this means £36 a year rise, it starts to add up. According to the BBC for some commuters’ it could mean that they are now paying over £5,000 for some annual season tickets.

For example take a passenger commuting from Deal and Dover Priory to London. They used to have an annual ticket cost of £4,864. They will now have a cost of £5,012. This is an annual increase of £158, which this commuter then has to find in their current budget.

Budget’s change every day, it’s a fact of life. Costs rise and fall and as a consequence we have to take them and what they mean into account. With the Kiran Trivedi Blog you can keep track of the major changes to ensure your budget stays up to date.